The "Unbeatable" Squirrel Girl Returning in New Marvel Comic

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl will be written by Ryan North and feature art from Erica Henderson.

If there's one thing that Marvel has been rocking lately, it's been humorous comic series that focus in on the lighter side of superheroism while still telling interesting, addictive stories. Heck, between books like Ms. Marvel, Silver Surfer and She-Hulk, there are some weeks where I spend more of my comic reading time laughing than anything else. It's looking like Marvel intends to keep that streak going because it just announced a new series centered on arguably its most gloriously silly superheroine: Squirrel Girl.

Revealed in Entertainment Weekly (thanks for the images, EW), the new series is being dubbed Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and will launch in January 2015 with writer Ryan North and artist Erica Henderson at the helm. The book itself will focus on the titular character as she tries to juggle her career as a college student with her duties defending the Earth from cosmic level threats. And if you think the latter part is a joke then you don't know your Squirrel Girl. In her very first appearance she took down Dr. Doom and, over the years, has gone toe-to-toe with countless Marvel heavies including Wolverine and Thanos, all of whom she defeated.

While we'll confess to being excited about the prospect of another female fronted superhero book, we will admit to being a tad perplexed as to what inspired Marvel to give Squirrel Girl a new ongoing series. Granted, this announcement isn't too much a surprise. The company, after all, did file a trademark to protect its rights to the character back in August. Setting that aside however, Squirrel Girl is perhaps still more of a cult favorite than a Marvel mainstay and it just seems like there'd be more obvious characters for the publisher to invest new money in. We've reached out to Marvel to learn more and will update you when we can.